Tag Archives: #artsandcrafts

Everyone has heard the adage of buying presents for children only to find out they prefer the box. Well, from experience, it is true. So today, my good friends, I am here to tell you about one of the most cherished gifts your child will get from you: An item to bond with, to sleep with, a source of comfort, homemade with love. Yes, you will beam with pride when other parents ask you, “Where did you buy that?”

From me to you: Make a pillowcase!

Back in the day, I made a Teletubbies pillowcase for my son. He loved it – he treasured it for a couple of years. My other son was meanwhile enjoying the store bought 101 Dalmations bed set, just so you know he wasn’t neglected.

Go to your local store where materials are sold such as WalMart or JoAnns, and you will find a whole new world of options: Animals of all types (real and cartoony), holiday themed prints, fairies, princesses, flowers, specific sports teams, and copyrighted Disney characters. What did I find for my boys? Dinosaurs and construction equipment galore. Jackpot!

Worried about your sewing skills? Don’t be. I’m not an expert seamstress. Out of all the things one can sew, a pillowcase is probably one of the easiest, even if you don’t have a sewing machine. If your work is not up to par, your child probably won’t notice. But just in case, here is a handy tip from me to you: Don’t sew ALL the edges together or you will be left with a pillowcase malfunction. Handy tip #2 – buy a “travel pillow” – it is the perfect size for a toddler, and you’ll need even less material.

A yard of material is dirt cheap compared to your limited selection of pricey bed sets, and you can almost bank on the idea that toddlers don’t know that bedding should match, and really, why should it? Where is the fun in that? Live a little!

Alternatively, if you are “one of those people” and just can’t function without the matching set, you can take it a step further. I actually made (er, um, yeah) dinosaur blankets. Okay – I didn’t MAKE the blankets. I bought really cheap blankets and then covered one side with dinosaur material and used a plain blue cheapo material on the other side. In retrospect the plain blue material was more difficult to deal with since it was very stretchable. Tip #3: If sewing is not your thing – don’t buy anything too stretchy.

My dinosaur blankets each have a large seam running down the middle because often material is sold in smaller widths than can cover an adult sized blanket – did my kids notice? Nope! However, after a couple of weeks, one son complained of something pointy in the blanket. Oops – it turned out I had sewn in one of the pins I had used to keep the edges together. Tip # 4: (I think you get the point, yuk, yuk.)

That same young man is now an older teenager. Out of the numerous pillowcases I made for him, he still has (in his closet) what is now an old, raggedy pillow with the construction print pillowcase. He is not willing to part with it. It is a keepsake of his. Oh my gosh, how worth it is that?

So pick a print, apply your skills and give the gift of a pillowcase! Tip #5: Don’t forget to include a pillow.

Since you may not always be able to find what you are looking for at your local store, I am including some affiliate links for themed materials that are always available online:

I bought a Christmas tree. I placed it in the holder all by myself, and low and behold I could not get it straight. More importantly, I couldn’t get it steady. Perhaps older teenage boy that I purchased the tree from at the local grocery store did not cut the bottom correctly. I broke out the old camp saw and cut it again myself. If you want something done right. . . Long story short, the tree is still leaning, and still loose. It could fall over at any time. I may have uttered a few bad words.

So let’s reframe the situation. Instead of admitting defeat, I will name this year’s tree: The Leaning Tower of Tree. It is much easier to cope with the situation, and much more fun. I have to admit, I did think about strapping the tree to the wall with plumber’s tape. Have I mentioned that my husband, the old bald guy, is a plumber? The layperson might imagine that plumbers tape actually has a sticky side. No, it is a thin sheet metal strap with which you use screws to secure things to a wall or stud, such as a water heater in an earthquake prone environment. No, it is much more fun to deal with said tree in its current condition. It is what it is.

Thinking back to previous years, I recall the year of two trees. The kids couldn’t agree on which tree to buy, and of course they each favored a different one. Luckily I could afford and we bought them both. Then there was the year of “The tree of poverty.” I believe it was 2008 or 2009 when the economy took a terrible turn for the worse. I bought a tiny little table top tree on the cheap, almost Charlie Brown style but not quite as sad. We had a lot of fun making fun of that tree, and the savings made for more money for presents. Boy, how I miss the days of the dollar bin for the plastic airplane or car that the kids loved as much as they would love a brand new computer nowadays.

So buy a tree, or don’t. Draw a tree on cardboard and stand it up against the wall. Put together cutout hand prints of your children, tape them together, and tape it to the wall. Don’t be sad about it. Set the mood and make it fun! Oh, and don’t forget to name your tree.

Tonight I reminisce. I would like to tell you about the fun & scary game that somehow just came to be. It became a favorite Halloween tradition for our family. Spooky Time.

When my children were very young, I liked to set the mood for whatever holiday was present. I just happened to be shopping for Christmas items at a craft store when I noticed a 90% off deal for Halloween items. Lucky me. I bought numerous, numerous candle holders at 10 cents apiece. Skulls, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, etc.

So come next Halloween, I put them on display. I also wanted to play some Halloween music, and all I could find was CD’s with songs such as The Purple People Eater. I used to light the candles in the spooky looking candle holders, as well as in the jack-o-lanterns we had carved. I would play the fun music and the kids would run around.

We turned out the lights so we could see how spooky the carved pumpkins and ghosts looked. Then we decided to play hide-n-seek. There were numerous candles everywhere so that every room was very well lit. We even left some of the lights on, but dimmed them. My boys were so cute. They would go to their bedroom for one minute to give us time to hide. Then, they would come out with big eyes, fake swords and plastic armor.

As the kids grew, I had to find scarier music. So I went online and found some great clips that I downloaded and put on CD’s: Werewolf howls, theme music from The Exorcist, theme music from the Halloween movies, music with people screaming on occasion, maniacal clown house music, the dreaded string sounds that you usually hear when someone is being attacked in a movie, etc.

The years continued to pass and we had to have less and less light as hiders were more easily found. By this time, the REALLY scary music was blasting, and the neighbor children came over for this great, fun, scary, Spooky Time. Sometimes the kids would hide with adults being the seekers, other times vice-versa. We discovered throwing items at or near a seeker could throw them off, and there was a lot of moving around so that hiders could go to a place where the seeker had already checked, leaving the seeker to believe no one was hiding there. One thing was very apparent – the jump scare never gets old!

Fast forward a couple of years. The lights were almost none existent. The music still blared on. So, yes, injuries started to occur. Hiders and seekers would run into each other. One night, I heard “Wendy, I’m bleeding!” We turned on the lights and our neighbor had a split in the center of his forehead. How very Halloween to have blood dripping down all over his face and onto the carpet. I thought he had crawled into an outside wall corner but it turns out he had just run straight into the flat surface of the wall. Head wounds bleed, um, a lot.

Boys and men are so funny. As my husband and I were working on the boy’s wound, my husband told him that someday women would be impressed with his scar, but that he needed a better story. Apparently, running into a wall doesn’t excite the ladies. All of the boys got to work. I was amazed by all of their fantastic stories as to how our neighbor had now suffered this injury. Great imaginations!

Being the only female present, I found it very interesting that there was no screaming or crying, but almost a proudness, a rite of passage if you will. I’m sure if some young girl had split her head open things would have been quite different.

I don’t think that was the last year of Spooky Time. I believe the next year the kids wore their karate gear, including headgear. We may have even gone one more year. But it was pretty much the end of an era. And that is why I reminisce. It was a lot of fun. Go ahead and give it a try, just remember to leave some lights on.

I love my Christmas Tree!! Many years ago when my husband and I were celebrating our first Christmases, we didn’t have much for the Christmas tree. We bought some ornaments from a neighbor kid for a school sales drive. We bought bright and shiny hanging balls and tinsel. We bought a unique ornament here and there, which of course would be horribly expensive if you bought enough in one season to fill up the tree. I’d have to say for the first several years of our marriage, our Christmas trees just had a manufactured feel. Memories of purchasing ornaments from K-mart just don’t warm the heart.

After my Grandmother passed away, I inherited all of her numerous ornaments which I LOVE!!! Most of them are handmade. The woman could sew. There are angels and stockings and snowflakes and Santas; all the typical ornaments you would think of for Christmas. I also have mice, geese, trains, drums, teddy bears and little wreaths. I recognized and remembered the felt angel I had made as a Camp Fire Girl with sequins and nylon material for the styrofoam head. And there are really unique ones, such as Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow, Raggedy Ann & Andy, items you wouldn’t associate with Christmas but they are adorable. I even have a Batman ornament and Robin ornament. There are so many – enough to fill up the whole tree.

As a youngster, my mom would always cook popcorn on the stovetop. Does anyone remember the labor that went into quickly moving the pot back and forth over the burner as the popcorn popped so it wouldn’t burn in the layer of oil? My mother gave my brother and me a needle and thread so we could make long strings of popcorn for the Christmas tree. I’m sure we ate more than we put on the string but it was great fun. We also made chains with links made out of cut up strips of colored construction paper. Cook that popcorn with your children, and link those links!

Since we have had our two boys, they have added to the collection. They made ornaments in school and at home. I still have a Kirby ornament made out of pipe cleaners, er um, chenelle sticks (they loved the Kirby Airride video game at the time). Yes they made paper chains. There are styrofoam balls they glued sequins and shiny glitter to, with unfolded paper clips as hangers. There is an ice cream cone with a glued on ball. There are simple ornaments that are paper cutouts that they drew on with crayons. They may not be the most artistic but since they are from my boys, they are the best and I hang them with pride!

So when the Christmas tree goes up, and I start hanging the ornaments, I am flooded with memories. My Grandmother made this with me as a little girl, here are the ones my sons made when they were young, and yes, my best friend bought this as a present for my first son and my first Christmas as a mother. Now the tree is not just a Christmas Tree, it is a Memory Tree, truly a Family Tree, full of history, each ornament with its own story. Make those ornaments, keep them, remember them, hang them, relive the memories and retell the stories.

About Canyon

An elegant, versatile and magazine style theme with easy customization options. It features a modern design, post excerpts with thumbnails, header, background, fixed-width, widget-ready and threaded comments. Canyon theme also comes with custom Menus support and other cool features. Tested with major browsers - Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and Chrome. Check Canyon Official Page in case you need directions.